COMMERCE
Subscriber Services
Classified Ads
Subscribe
Advertise
NEWS
This Month
Editorial
Letters
F/V Safety
Past Issues
ABOUT US
Contact Us
Latest Issue
Subscribe
History
MORE CONTENT
CFN Archives
Links
Each month exclusively in the PRINT edition of CFN
Along the Coast
Ask the Lobster Doc
Bearin’s
Classifieds
Coming Events
Editorial
Enforcement Report
FISH SAFE
Fleet Additions
Letters
Lobster Market Report
New Boats
News Catch
Quahog Market Report
|
Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 9
May 2006
NMFS sets control date for charter, party boats
GLOUCESTER, MA – The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has announced that March 30, 2006 will serve as the “control date” for potentially restricting future access to the charter and party boat fishery for groundfish.
The date applies to all vessels with open-access charter/party permits, as well as limited-access multispecies vessels that conduct charter/party operations while not on a day-at-sea.
The request for a control date came from the New England Fishery Management Council, which was urged to adopt one by several members of the charter/party boat industry.
In a March 30 Federal Register notice, NMFS stated, “The control date will help to distinguish established participants from speculative entrants to the fishery.”
The agency added, “(E)ntering the fishery after the control date will not ensure fishing vessels of future access to the … resource. … The council may choose different and variably weighted measures to qualify participants based on the type and length of participation in the charter/party Northeast multispecies fishery.”
Charter/party boats in this fishery primarily target cod, but according to NMFS, they also commonly catch other regulated species – namely pollock, haddock, winter flounder, and, to a lesser extent, white hake.
NMFS issued 673 open-access charter/party permits in 2005, which was five percent fewer than it issued in 2002, the year these permits hit their peak.
The possession of Gulf of Maine cod will be prohibited in the entire recreational fishery from Nov. 1 through March 31, and the minimum size for recreationally caught Gulf of Maine cod will increase from 22" to 24" under two pending groundfish actions. One is the secretarial emergency rule, which was expected to be implemented May 1, and Framework Adjustment 42, which was developed by the council and is under review by NMFS for implementation later this summer.
Back to story list
|
|
Tell us what you think.
